Affective and physiological responses to environmental noises and music

Research suggests that respiratory patterns may reflect general dimensions of emotional response. In this study, we investigated the relationships between judgments of affective valence (pleasantness) and arousal and respiratory responses to acoustic stimuli. Sixteen environmental noises and 16 musical fragments of 30 s duration were presented to 31 participants, while respiration, skin conductance level and heart rate were recorded. Judgments of valence and arousal were registered using the 9-point Self-Assessment Manikin. For noises, breathing accelerated and minute ventilation augmented with decreases in pleasantness for low-arousal stimuli and with increases in arousal for positive stimuli. For music, breathing accelerated and minute ventilation augmented with increases both in rated valence and arousal. Skin conductance level increased with arousal ratings for music but not for noises, whereas mean heart rate increased with rated arousal for noises but not for music. Although both noises and music are sound-vibrations, differences in the relationships between affective judgments and physiological responses were found suggesting differences in the processing of the two types of acoustic stimuli. [Authors]

Physiques sonores

Ce livre, publié grâce aux soutiens logistiques et financiers du Lausanne Underground Film and Music Festival et du Groupe de la Riponne, est le premier de la collection Rip on / off. Textes édités et traduits (de l'anglais) par Christian Indermuhle et Thibault Walter dans le cadre des activités éditoriales du Groupe de la Riponne à l'occasion du Lausanne Underground Film and Music Festival 2008. Avec des collaborations de Nikola Mounoud, Boris Wlassof, Fernando Sixto, Guy-Marc Hinant, Naut Humon pour les textes ; de Julien Notter et Sébastien Vigne pour le graphisme. Un CD original, Form & Disposition, composé et masterisé par Zbigniew Karkowski, joué aux percussions par Daniel Buess et enregistré par Alex Buess en septembre 2008 aux studios 2.8.1 à Bâle, est offert avec ce livre. "Ces textes ne sont pas des compléments à l'oeuvre musicale de Zbigniew Karkowski, ils n'en sont ni une théorie, ni une explication. La musique se suffit à elle-même, elle déploie ses propres régimes d'intelligence et de conceptualités. Il s'agit donc ici de dire autre chose. Et de permettre à zk de rendre compte de sa pratique et de sa longue expérimentation de la matérialité des sons et de leur puissance. Quand nous avons choisi d'éditer, de traduire ces textes et de les enrichir de matériaux nouveaux, nous savions que nous ne pouvions nous dispenser des réseaux souterrains multipliés qu'un tel projet suppose. Ainsi, et suite à plusieurs rencontres, notamment dans le cadre de concerts donnés depuis 2005 sur la scène du luff, nous avons demandé à zk d'écrire ce livre, de rassembler ses textes d'il y a vingt ans ceux-là mêmes qui flottaient à la dérive du web, et de les compléter en enrichissant les entretiens qu'il avait eus en 2002 avec Boris Wlassof, dont les textes avaient initialement été publiés dans le numéro 59 de Revue et Corrigée. Nous avons choisi par ailleurs d'aider ou de perdre le lecteur en lui proposant, pour se guider un peu, en fin de parcours, deux glossaires reprenant quelques uns des termes musicaux et des personnages évoqués dans ce livre, et aussi d'inviter Fernando Sixto et Naut Humon à nous donner l'écho de deux oreilles ayant entendu l'oeuvre de zk, afin que ce livre multipliât les accès à ses univers musicaux, et qu'il ne soit pas le marbre qui refermât leur tombeau. Le bruit est vivant, c'est cette vitalité qu'il s'agit ici d'écouter."

Enhanced kangaroo mother care for heel lance in preterm neonates: a crossover trial.

OBJECTIVE: To test if enhancing maternal skin-to-skin contact, or kangaroo mother care (KMC) by adding rocking, singing and sucking is more efficacious than simple KMC for procedural pain in preterm neonates. STUDY DESIGN: Preterm neonates (n=90) between 32 0/7 and 36 0/7 weeks' gestational age participated in a single-blind randomized crossover design. The infant was held in KMC with the addition of rocking, singing and sucking or the infant was held in KMC without additional stimulation. The Premature Infant Pain Profile was the primary outcome with time to recover as the secondary outcome. A repeated-measures analysis of covariance was employed for analyses. RESULT: There were no significant differences in any of the 30 s time periods over the 2 min of blood sampling nor in time to return to baseline. Compared to historical controls of the same age in incubator, the pain scores were lower and comparable to other studies of KMC. There were site differences related to lower scores with the use of sucrose in one site and higher scores in younger, sicker infants in another site. CONCLUSION: The sensorial stimulations from skin-to-skin contact that include tactile, olfactory sensations from the mother are sufficient to decrease pain response in premature neonates. Other studies showing that rocking, sucking and music were efficacious were independent of skin-to-skin contact, which, when used alone has been shown to be effective as reported across studies.

Décrire et convaincre: rhétoriques visuelles de la cinématographie en médecine [Describe and convince: visual rhetoric of cinematography in medicine]

The tools of visualisation occupy a central place in medicine. Far from being simple accessories of glance, they literally constitute objects of medicine. Such empirical acknowledgement and epistemological position open a vast field of investigation: visual technologies of medical knowledge. This article studies the development and transformation of medical objects which have permitted to assess the role of temporality in the epistemology of medicine. It firstly examines the general problem of the relationships between cinema, animated image and medicine and secondly, the contribution of the German doctor Martin Weiser to medical cinematography as a method. Finally, a typology is sketched out organising the variety of the visual technology of movement under the perspective of the development of specific visual techniques in medicine.

Music and felt emotions: how systematic pitch level variations affect the experience of pleasantness and arousal

Pitch is a fundamental musical factor; however, findings about its contribution to the elicitation of emotions are contradictory. The purpose of this work was to assess the effect of systematic pitch variations on self-reports of felt valence and arousal. In a within-subject design, 49 subjects listened to four 1-minute classical piano excerpts, each presented at three different pitch levels (one octave lower than the original version, the original version and one octave higher than the original version). Compared to excerpts both without octave modification and in the +1 octave variant, pleasantness of excerpts in the -1 octave variant was significantly lower. This main effect was stronger for women than men and, importantly, was modulated by the specific characteristics of the stimuli. There was also a significant, yet smaller, negative relationship between pitch level and arousal, moderated by gender: Compared to higher pitch, lower pitch was associated with higher arousal in men only. Regarding the complex outcomes of this study, future studies should investigate to which extent our findings can be generalized to other musical works. The ultimate goal might be to demonstrate how pitch level interacts with other musical features and listeners' characteristics in eliciting diverse affective experiences.

Cardio respiratory activity in high-anxious vs. low-anxious professional music students before and during performance

Questionnaire studies indicate that high-anxious musicians may suffer from hyperventilation symptoms before and/or during performance. Reported symptoms include amongst others shortness of breath, fast or deep breathing, dizziness and thumping heart. However, no study has yet tested if these self-reported symptoms reflect actual cardio respiratory changes. Disturbances in breathing patterns and hyperventilation may contribute to the often observed poorer performance of anxious musicians under stressful performance situations. The main goal of this study is to determine if music performance anxiety is manifest physiologically in specific correlates of cardio respiratory activity. We studied 74 professional music students divided into two groups (i.e. high-anxious and lowanxious) based on their self-reported performance anxiety in three distinct situations: baseline, private performance (without audience), public performance (with audience). We measured a) breathing patterns, end-tidal carbon dioxide (EtCO2, a good non-invasive estimator for hyperventilation), ECG and b) self-perceived emotions and self-perceived physiological activation. The poster will concentrate on the preliminary results of this study. The focus will be a) on differences between high-anxious and low-anxious musicians regarding breaths per minute and heart rate and b) on the response coherence between self-perceived palpitations and actual heart rate.

Psychophysiological activation during preparation, performance, and recovery in high- and low-anxious music students

The present study provides a comprehensive view of (a) the time dynamics of the psychophysiological responding in performing music students (n = 66) before, during, and after a private and a public performance and (b) the moderating effect of music performance anxiety (MPA). Heart rate (HR), minute ventilation (VE), and all affective and somatic self-report variables increased in the public session compared to the private session. Furthermore, the activation of all variables was stronger during the performances than before or after. Differences between phases were larger in the public than in the private session for HR, VE, total breath duration, anxiety, and trembling. Furthermore, while higher MPA scores were associated with higher scores and with larger changes between sessions and phases for self-reports, this association was less coherent for physiological variables. Finally, self-reported intra-individual performance improvements or deteriorations were not associated with MPA. This study makes a novel contribution by showing how the presence of an audience influences low- and high-anxious musicians' psychophysiological responding before, during and after performing. Overall, the findings are more consistent with models of anxiety that emphasize the importance of cognitive rather than physiological factors in MPA.

Performance anxiety : cardiorespiratory activity in high- and low-anxious professional music students in a performance situation

Questionnaire studies indicate that high-anxious musicians may suffer from hyperventilation symptoms before and/or during performance. Reported symptoms include amongst others shortness of breath, fast or deep breathing, dizziness and thumping heart. A self-report study by Widmer, Conway, Cohen and Davies (1997) shows that up to seventy percent of the tested highly anxious musicians are hyperventilators during performance. However, no study has yet tested if these self-reported symptoms reflect actual cardiorespiratory changes just before and during performance. Disturbances in breathing patterns and hyperventilation may negatively affect the performance quality in stressful performance situations. The main goal of this study is to determine if music performance anxiety is manifest physiologically in specific correlates of cardiorespiratory activity. We studied 74 professional music students of Swiss Music Universities divided into two groups (high- and lowanxious) based on their self-reported performance anxiety (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory by Spielberger). The students were tested in three distinct situations: baseline, performance without audience, performance with audience. We measured a) breathing patterns, end-tidal carbon dioxide, which is a good non-invasive estimator for hyperventilation, and cardiac activation and b) self-perceived emotions and self-perceived physiological activation. Analyses of heart rate, respiratory rate, self-perceived palpitations, self-perceived shortness of breath and self-perceived anxiety for the 15 most and the 15 least anxious musicians show that high-anxious and low-anxious music students have a comparable physiological activation during the different measurement periods. However, highanxious music students feel significantly more anxious and perceive significantly stronger palpitations and significantly stronger shortness of breath just before and during a public performance. The results indicate that low- and high-anxious music students a) do not differ in the considered physiological responses and b) differ in the considered self-perceived physiological symptoms and the selfreported anxiety before and/or during a public performance.

Aufftrittsangst : kardiorespiratorische Aktivität bei ängstlichen und nichtängstlichen Musikstudenten in einer Auftrittssituation = Performance anxiety : cardiorespiratory activity in high- and low-anxious professional music students in a performance situation

Fragebogenstudien haben gezeigt, dass ängstliche Musiker vor und/oder während eines Auftritts möglicherweise unter Hyperventilationssymptomen leiden. Berichtete Symptome beinhalten Kurzatmigkeit, schnelles oder tiefes Einatmen, Schwindelgefühl und Herzklopfen. Bisher hat jedoch noch keine Studie getestet, ob diese selbstberichteten Symptome tatsächlich kardiorespiratorische Veränderungen widerspiegeln. Das Hauptziel dieser Studie ist es, zu bestimmen, ob sich Auftrittsangst bei Musikern physiologisch über kardiorespiratorische Muster äußert. Wir haben insgesamt 74 Musikstudenten von Schweizer Musikhochschulen getestet. Diese Studenten wurden aufgrund ihrer selbstberichteten Auftrittsangst (STAI-S) in zwei Gruppen unterteilt: ängstliche Musiker und nichtängstliche Musiker. Die Studenten wurden in drei unterschiedlichen Situationen getestet: Ausgangszustand, Auftritt ohne Publikum, Auftritt mit Publikum. Wir haben folgende Parameter gemessen: a) kardiorespiratorische Muster und endexpiratorisches CO2, welches eine gute nichtinvasive Schätzung des Hyperventilationsgrades liefert und b) subjektiv wahrgenommene Emotionen und subjektiv wahrgenommene physiologische Aktivität. Das Poster zeigt die ersten Resultate der 15 ängstlichsten und der 15 am wenigsten ängstlichen Musiker. Das Hauptinteresse gilt den folgenden Punkten: Herz- und Atemfrequenz, subjektiv wahrgenommenes Herzklopfen, subjektiv wahrgenommene Kurzatmigkeit und subjektiv wahrgenommenes Angstgefühl. Die Resultate dieser Studie zeigen erstens, dass ängstliche und nichtängstliche Musikstudenten zu den verschiedenen Messzeitpunkten eine vergleichbare physiologische Aktivität aufweisen und zweitens, dass ängstliche Musikstudenten ein signifikant höheres Angstgefühl haben und signifikant mehr Herzklopfen und Kurzatmigkeit wahrnehmen vor und/oder während eines Auftritts mit Publikum. Dies deutet darauf hin, dass sich ängstliche und nichtängstliche Musikstudenten a) bezüglich der subjektiv wahrgenommenen physiologischen Symptome und des selbst berichteten Angstgefühls vor und/oder während eines öffentlichen Auftritts unterscheiden und sich b) bezüglich der untersuchten physiologischen Reaktionen nicht unterscheiden.

Music Performance Anxiety (MPA) : cardiorespiratory activity in high- and low-anxious professional music students before a performance situation

Descriptors: music performance anxiety, respiration, hyperventilation Surveys indicate that high-anxious musicians may suffer from hyperventilation (HV) before or during performance. Reported symptoms include shortness of breath, fast/ deep breathing and thumping heart. However, no study has yet tested if these selfreported symptoms reflect actual cardiorespiratory activity. Themain goal of this study was to determine if MPA is manifested physiologically in specific correlates of cardiorespiratory activity associated with HV.We studied 74 professional music students from Swiss Music Academies. In this study, we compared the most anxious students (highanxious; n 5 20) with the least anxious students (low-anxious; n 5 23) based on their self-reported performance anxiety. We measured cardiorespiratory patterns with the Lifeshirt system, end-tidal CO2 with a capnograph (EtCO2, a good non-invasive estimator of HV), self-perceived physiological activation and affective experience in three situations on different days: baseline, performance without audience, and performance with audience. Comparing measures for the private vs. the public concert, high- compared to low-anxious students showed a significant drop in EtCO2 before the public concert and reported larger increases in anxiety, tension, palpitations and breathing difficulties. In contrast, heart rate, respiratory rate and volume did not differ significantly between groups. The results of this study support the hypothesis thatMPA may be associated with a tendency to hyperventilate and, thus, point to a potential hyperventilation problem in high-anxious music students.